Earlier this week, I wrote about a report that the California Coastal Commission released about its interactions with Sean Parker over his wedding in a Redwood grove in Big Sur. From the language and photographs in the report, I came to some pretty harsh conclusions about the whole affair.

After the post was published, Parker wrote to me with a spirited defense of the wedding. He provided some details, which have reduced the boiling of my blood to a simmer. His whole email is reprinted below, but these are the key new facts, as I see them. One, Parker "consulted informally" with the Save the Redwoods League early in the process, so he wasn't building blindly. Two, according to Parker, the photograph of the gorgeous grove that was included in the CCC report as a "before" photograph was actually taken after Parker's crew had cleaned it up and gotten rid of a lot of the asphalt that had been laid down at the site. Three, his payment of $2.5 million was voluntary and "consistent with the kind of conservation work I'm already doing."

I attempted to reach the CCC to confirm these details, but have not heard back. You can read the staff report they issued here [pdf].

I can't say I agree that there is nothing extravagant about doing $4.5 million in site preparation, but I can say that at least it wasn't quite the know-nothing bigfooting that it appeared to be. Like I said in my original post, I don't really care that rich people spend insane amounts of money on their weddings; I just don't want everyone and everything else to get trampled along the way.

Here's a lightly edited version of the email that Parker sent me presenting his side of the story.

Alexis,

I read your article with a great deal of sadness and dismay.

First and foremost is that nobody goes out of their way to get married in
a redwood forest unless they really love redwood forests. Getting married
beneath an old growth redwood tree has been a dream shared by me and my
wife for a long time. We spent two years hiking redwood groves, both
public and private, in order to locate the perfect spot for our wedding.
We needed to find private land that had been previously developed
("disturbed land" in CCC vernacular) so that there would be minimal
environmental impact. When we found the Ventana campground site it was not
exactly in pristine shape -- the natural ground cover was gone and it had
been paved over with black asphalt! The pictures in the CCC report
probably show what the site looked like after I removed (or covered) all
the black asphalt (which I found appalling) using either bulldozers or
just by spreading dirt and forest brush around the area. It is also
possible that this area had been cleared as a camping "pad" for an RV or
mobile home. Regardless, an undisturbed forest would not be dirt or
asphalt, it would be covered in vegetation of some sort.

Second, my foundation has only two primary missions, one is cancer
research (specifically cancer immunotherapy), and the other is
conservation. I have begun a program of "conservation buying" - that is
where I locate private land that needs to be protected, buy it with my own
funds, and then donate it to someone like state parks or non-profits to
maintain it for the public benefit. I spend quite a bit of my foundation's
money on conservation related projects. To that end, I had previously been
a major donor to the Save the Redwoods League.

I needed help finding a forest to host the event. Finding a forest with
some old growth redwood trees that can accommodate 300 people is no easy
task. I enlisted the help of Save the Redwoods to identify the site, and
they suggested the Ventana campground precisely because it was private
property and not public land, and it was owned and operated by a
hospitality business (a hotel) and had previously been used for events.
You mention that I "privatized the previously public." There is no sense
is which this was public land. The only issue with the campground was that
it had been closed to campers for several years due to fire and other
issues. The Ventana has an active contractual obligation with the CCC to
keep the campground open on a for-profit basis. Given that I was just
renting the (already closed) campground for a short time, I could not have
possibly known about this issue, and my wedding did not prolong the
closure of the campground in any way.

The Save the Redwoods League actually consulted informally on the project
from Day 1, sending their Director of Science down to the site to educate
our naturalist regarding a plan for work that would be minimally
environmentally disruptive to the local redwood and riparian habitats.
This is something I chose to do entirely of my own volition and without
any pressure from government agencies. (This took place winter of last
year.) At this point we had no issues with the CCC or any other agency, I
just wanted everything to be as authentic as possible and I didn't want to
disrupt the natural habitat. I only knew to do this because I had an
existing understanding of forest restoration via my conservation work and
I also have an appreciation for what a natural redwood forest should look
like because of my time spent hiking around redwood forests. We want to
crazy lengths to ensure that nothing in the forest was harmed during the
construction process. We used fabric liners to protect the ground from our
landscaping work. We avoided planting directly in the soil, instead we
brought in potted plants. Contrary to media reports, no redwood trees were
harmed by the wedding or construction. (At least none that I'm aware of.)

While we made some mistakes, by and large the biologists who were sent out
to the site (by the CCC and others) were happy with the measures we'd
taken. Of course it's impossible to get everything exactly right at a
production of this scale. Keep in mind when we found it, the campground
was full of black asphalt roads, picnic tables, and all kinds of other
man-made structures.

Everything we built was designed to be dismantled and removed after the
wedding. I inquired about the need for permits early in the process and
was informed that, due to the temporary nature of the construction, no
such permit would be required. The CCC and Monterey County both offer some
sort of exemptions for temporary events. Almost all the structures you see
were designed to be temporary--they were actually built off-site and then
reassembled on the topsoil of the campground. There is no mortar inside
them, so they will just come apart like legos and get carried off. My
original agreement with Ventana provided for me to restore the property to
the condition in which I had found it, which was anything but perfect. The
campground was missing all the normal sorrel leaf ground cover and other
foliage. All the the greenery that you see in my photographs had to be
brought in by me since the campground had been totally stripped of any
vegetation when I found it. My goal was to leave the property in much
better condition than when I found it.

More importantly, because I was just renting the site from a hotel, my
representatives were told by relevant agencies, such as the CCC and
Monterey County planning commission, that it was the responsibility of the
property owner, not the hotel guest, to obtain any necessary permits.

How can a hotel guest paying a hotel to host their wedding be in a
position to legally apply for permits covering a property that they do not
own? There was neither an obligation, contractual or otherwise, nor any
legal way for me to apply for permits.

You should also be aware that the $2.5 million was not, strictly speaking,
a "fine" for any particular violation. We conceded to pay a $1 million
into the CCC's conservation fund, and then work together to deploy a
minimum of an additional $1.5 million in charitable contributions to help
the Monterey/Big Sur area. This is all work that is consistent with the
kind of conservation work I'm already doing. We have some great ideas
about how to provide affordable (read: free) camping by bussing
under-privileged kids and other groups into the Big Sur area for a free
camping experience that they would get to have otherwise. Keep in mind,
this is a minimum contribution, I am open to giving much more as the
conservation projects develop.

The vision behind this wedding was to integrate with nature as much as
possible, to bring out the natural beauty of the site while incorporating
the kinds of things that one would need at a wedding. We did as much
landscaping as possible using native species (ferns, sorrel ground cover,
forget-me-not flowers), and everything was placed in potted plants with
mulch around them so as not to plant or introduce foreign species into the
forest. We used no invasive species.

There were no "ruined castles" built in the forest. The only stonework
were walkways for the guests and walls that served as barriers between the
different areas. I don't know where all this talk of castles and towers
and things came from. The stonework is actually hollow (filled with bird
wire) so that it can be removed quickly.

We had a very specific aesthetic vision for this event that was subtle,
tasteful, and carefully orchestrated. Everything we did was an homage to
nature, to the natural redwood environment which I call "God's cathedral."
We wanted the forest to speak for itself, but we had to build the basic
minimum features to make the campground safe and viable for a wedding.

Finally, you mention that what we did was "extravagant" yet none of the
usual tasteless crap that rich people do at their weddings was present
here -- no ice sculptures, no caviar, no pop stars hired to sing their hits
songs, etc. This is why your article and so many other articles have been
so deeply offensive. Maybe I will be allowed to release some photos of the
event at some point so you can see first hand what we created rather than
just speculating based on what else has been published in the press. All
of the numbers that have been released were total fabrications (this $9
million number of instance) and are WAY off base. I will say, against my
better instinct to tell you, that we spent roughly $4.5 million on
prepping the site and big part of that was restoring the forest floor (I
should say, covering the forest floor with plants) since it had been paved
over in black asphalt or cleared by bulldozers before we ever laid eyes on
the campground.